Friday, September 22, 2017

By helping Assad's forces bridge the river, Moscow is increasing the risk of direct confrontation while obstructing U.S. efforts to defeat IS, stabilize eastern Syria, and limit Iranian arms transfers.

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced today that "Syrian government troops" crossed to the east bank of the Euphrates River using a Russian pontoon bridge and amphibious vehicles. Although the situation remains fluid, the crossing by what appeared to be elements of Syria's Iranian-trained and Russian-supported "5th Corps" has deep implications for U.S. policy on the Islamic State (IS), the Syria war, and Iran.

First, the move significantly discredits the argument that the Euphrates can serve as a viable deconfliction line while IS implodes, much like the Elbe River separated Russian and American forces in Europe at the conclusion of World War II. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are arriving at Deir al-Zour from the northeast while Russian-supported Syrian forces and Shia militias (including Hezbollah) are arriving from the west. According to Russian media, the contingent crossing the Euphrates is a collection of local and national regime forces called the 5th Corps, many of whose members have been trained and organized by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Russia. The crossing increases the likelihood of confrontation between proxies or even between U.S. and Russian forces, as highlighted on September 16 when Russian aviation reportedly bombed SDF targets located within a couple miles of U.S. Special Operations Forces. This raises the question of how the United States intends to protect the SDF and other proxies fighting IS.

The move also complicates any potential SDF push down the east bank of the Euphrates toward local oil and gas fields, which could be used to fund reconstruction in former IS-controlled areas. Syrian regime spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban told Iran's Press TV that Bashar al-Assad's "strategic intent" was to halt the SDF's advance, describing the joint Kurdish-Arab brigade as an illegitimate aggressor and equating it with IS. If Russian and pro-Assad forces hold the bridgehead on the east bank, they will likely block the primary north-south road on that side of the river, forcing the SDF to continue pushing down the IS-controlled Khabur River Valley in order to reach the oil fields further south.

Assuming they are unable to capture the major energy and agricultural zones south of Deir al-Zour, the SDF -- and Washington -- would lose much of their leverage over the Assad regime, Iran, and Russia in any political settlement to the Syria crisis. That scenario might also further Assad's plan to retake "every inch" of the country by military means. In light of the regime's depleted manpower, that approach would likely entail wider involvement by the IRGC and Shia militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Given the large Sunni Arab majority population in the Euphrates Valley, such an outcome would exacerbate sectarian and extremist violence in the area, resulting in a "New Syria" that refugees are unlikely to return to.

In addition, the crossing brings Iran one step closer to its stated goal of creating a land bridge between Iraq and Syria, giving the Islamic Republic another avenue through which to place troops and weapons on the borders of U.S. allies. Tehran has steadily worked toward that goal even as Israel reached a de-escalation agreement in southwestern Syria designed to keep Hezbollah and other Iranian-supported militias a few kilometers away from the Golan Heights frontier. Such developments have incensed Israel's security establishment, increasing the likelihood that they will expand their military operations in and around Syria to loosen Iran's deepening grip on the country.

To head off this growing list of problems, the United States is engaging in serious diplomacy and communication with Moscow to avoid further military complications. Yet Washington also needs to reemphasize its support for the SDF at a time when the lines of control between them and pro-Assad forces are narrowing. This means establishing clear policy on what the United States will and will not do to defend its proxies in eastern Syria and elsewhere. In June, U.S. forces struck Shia militias threatening al-Tanf base in southern Syria, then downed an Assad regime aircraft attacking the SDF; these incidents serve as models for how to support proxies while avoiding escalation.

Washington's primary objective is to defeat IS, but the administration has also stated its intent to contain Iran's "malign activity" in the region. Russian diplomats claim there is no military solution to the conflict, but today's Euphrates crossing shows that defense officials in Moscow and Tehran have something different in mind, raising the risk of direct U.S. confrontation with Assad, Iran, and Russia. If one purpose of U.S. support for local actors such as the SDF is "shaping the environment" to contain Iran and its allies, then Washington needs to recognize that Tehran and Assad are directly challenging this goal with the help of Russian airpower. U.S. officials therefore need to decide what diplomatic and military moves are necessary, including frank conversations with the Russians.

Andrew J. Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics.

The game for who will rule eastern Syria after the Islamic State (or ISIS) is on. On May 18, the United States destroyed a military convoy[2] allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after it ignored repeated warnings to stop its advance on al-Tanf, a U.S. and British special operations base on the Syrian-Jordanian border. The base is covered under the October 2015 U.S.-Russian deconfliction agreement, which established a hotline for avoiding direct military confrontation between Russian- and U.S.-backed forces in Syria. This came a few days after the Russian base at Khmeimim[3] had declared that its air force, along with Iranian military advisers, would support Assad’s troops in their attempt to push east, clearing the road from Damascus to Baghdad and preventing the formation of a U.S.-supported buffer zone in eastern Syria. All of this followed Washington’s announcement on May 9 that it would provide heavier weapons[4] to the Kurdish factions of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to help them take ISIS’ capital, Raqqa—enraging U.S. ally Turkey.

Such actions are nominally about fighting ISIS. But the various actors in Syria are increasingly thinking about what comes next[5], with an eye toward the weaknesses of the other side. U.S.-Russian deconfliction agreements in Syria will likely soon be put to the test, increasing the likelihood for accidents at best. There is now a greater risk that the United States and its allies will be brought into direct military confrontation not only with Assad but with his Russian and Iranian backers—a risk that was previously tempered by the need of both factions to fight ISIS. To ensure that the risk of military confrontation remains manageable, the United States and Russia should agree on the parameters of a de-escalation zone in southern Syria that keeps the focus on ISIS and contains Iran’s ambitions for a land bridge through Syria to the Mediterranean. As things are going, however, this is unlikely to occur anytime soon, unless the Assad regime’s weaknesses are laid bare for its Russian and Iranian backers.

THE GREAT GAME

According to media reports, the May 18 U.S. strike on pro-Assad forces came after the column, made up of government troops and Shiite militiamen, refused instructions to turn around and ignored warning shots from U.S. aircraft. Although such aggressive moves by regime forces seemed to come from nowhere, bellicose messages had been emerging from the Russian air base at Khmeimim all week. These were noteworthy for their explicit intent and the degree to which they promised Russian cooperation with Iran. For instance, one message from the base’s Telegram feed stated:

The decision by Russia and Iran to encourage the Syrian government to push east comes in the wake of two major moves by the United States. The first was a missile strike against the Assad regime in April in response to its alleged use of sarin nerve gas[6]—a violation of international law (the Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013 as part of Security Council Resolution 2118) as well as of a 2013 U.S.-Russian agreement[7] to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. The second was Washington’s recent decision to ramp up support for the Kurdish-led SDF in its effort to liberate Raqqa.

Together, these moves signaled a deepening U.S. involvement in the Syrian war. The Americans’ previous plan for fighting ISIS in Syria, developed under former President Barack Obama, was based on support for the Kurdish People’s Protection Units[8] (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party, a Syrian offshoot of the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK is officially considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department and is the archenemy of Washington’s NATO ally Turkey. To square this circle, the United States created an umbrella organization around the YPG—the SDF—that encouraged non-Kurdish groups to help the Kurds fight ISIS in eastern Syria and the Euphrates River valley in return for U.S. support. The hope was that as the SDF took over more territory, it would gain support from the Kurds’ Sunni Arab rivals, who make up the majority of the population in eastern Syria and in the Euphrates valley in particular. The valley is the heartland of ISIS and its precursor, al Qaeda, and holding it is key not only to defeating the organization but, most importantly, to ensuring that it does not come back stronger in the future.

Militarily, the plan has been a success. The SDF has significantly reduced ISIS’ territorial holdings, surrounded Raqqa, and gained the admiration of U.S. military advisers. Politically, however, the SDF remains dominated by the Kurds. And although some Arab fighters have joined the SDF, to date they have mostly been either Arab Christians and other minorities or else Sunni Bedouin tribesmen, who are rivals of the settled tribes of the Euphrates Valley. Unless Washington can convince the YPG to give up its majority shareholding in the SDF and share power with the settled tribes, the Kurds’ ability to hold Raqqa and the rest of the Euphrates Valley seems like a long shot.[9]

Russia and Iran recognize that given the SDF’s limited ability to hold territory, the collapse of ISIS in eastern Syria presents an opportunity for the Assad regime to recapture lost ground. Over the past few months, Moscow and Tehran have thus been supporting the efforts of the government’s new Fifth Corps, an amalgam of pro-Assad militias with Russian and Iranian support, to push east from Aleppo to Manbij in north-central Syria—thereby cutting into Turkey’s buffer zone north of Aleppo—and then press south and east along the west bank of the Euphrates toward Raqqa. This move gives Russia multiple options: it can present the regime to the Sunni Arabs of the Euphrates Valley as a viable alternative to the SDF while leaving open the possibility of supporting the YPG in the event of greater U.S. cooperation with YPG rival Turkey. The move also enables Russia to play the role of spoiler to the United States’ plans in the region.

GETTING IN THE ZONE

The Russian-Iranian plan is ambitious, but it retains a critical flaw: the Assad regime’s depleted manpower means that it cannot conquer one piece of territory without exposing itself somewhere else. For instance, as the Fifth Corps pressed east over the past few months, the government began rapidly losing territory north of Hama, raising fears it would lose the city. Although Assad had repeatedly[10] used chlorine gas since the 2013 deal, it was only after these recent losses that his forces turned to the far more deadly sarin. This in turn prompted the U.S. missile strike on Assad’s Shayrat airfield, which destroyed around one-fifth of the Syrian air force. But it also sent a message: the United States will not allow the Assad regime to gas its way out of the conflict with Russian and Iranian help.

Realizing the regime doesn’t have the resources to fight on multiple fronts, Moscow and Tehran proposed in early May the creation of several “de-escalation zones,” or areas that the regime would not attack, in exchange for Russian and Iranian forces acting as “guarantors” that would monitor ceasefire violations. Such an arrangement would have allowed Russia and Iran to accept a de facto partition of the country without ceding control of the zones to neighboring countries, particularly Jordan and Turkey, supporting the opposition in those areas. From a U.S. perspective, the area with the greatest potential (and highest priority) for a prospective de-escalation zone is southwest Syria, including Deraa and the area abutting the Golan Heights. There, the armed opposition is more moderate—and, to date, more manageable—than in many other areas, and the Iranians’ presence is small enough that their ability to act as spoilers may be limited. As a result, southwest Syria is an area where a deconfliction agreement backed by U.S. and Russian security guarantees has a more realistic chance of succeeding.

Securing the south would not only protect U.S. allies Jordan and Israel from jihadists and the Assad regime, it would also provide a foothold for future anti-ISIS military operations to move east into the Euphrates Valley. Southern Syria’s Sunni Arabs, supported from Jordan, could also provide a possible alternative, or complement, to the SDF.

Russia’s announcement of joint operations with Iran to help Assad push toward the Euphrates also signaled that, as the Americans long suspected, Moscow intends to help Tehran secure a land bridge—a contiguous stretch of territory controlled by Iranian allies—from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah-controlled areas in Lebanon, which would allow for the delivery of more and heavier weapons westward to Syria and Lebanon. Yet this is unlikely to convince other countries in the region, such as the Gulf states and Jordan, to stop supporting the opposition and may actually intensify the conflict. It could also provoke a response from U.S. President Donald Trump[11], whose administration seeks to counter Iran’s expansionist ambitions in places far outside its traditional sphere of influence, including the wilds of eastern Syria.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

The outcome of the Russian- and Iranian-supported thrust eastward remains unclear. Over the past few days, pro-regime forces and allied Shiite militias—reportedly flying Russian flags[12] at the head of their columns—have been capturing territory from ISIS in the Badiya, the area east of Damascus in southern Syria. Yet taking and holding areas closer to the Euphrates will require many more troops, highlighting the regime’s manpower deficiencies and putting the Russians’ and Iranians’ willingness to escalate to the test.

The best way for Washington to manage this situation is to let the regime expend its energy pushing out toward the Euphrates while preparing for the advance to stall, as it looks likely to do. This requires sticking with the U.S.-Russian deconfliction agreements to protect al-Tanf while strengthening opposition groups in the region, many of which include Sunni Arabs and are therefore more politically acceptable to the locals. Initial indications[13] from Syrian and Russian sources are that Assad intends to take the ISIS stronghold of Deir ez-Zor in the central Euphrates Valley, giving the United States time to bolster opposition forces south toward Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border. Such an initiative would give the United States better options in southern Syria, help key U.S. allies Jordan and Israel, and temper Iran’s plans to dominate the Baghdad–Damascus road. It would also give the United States much-needed Sunni Arab political support for—or an alternative to—the Kurdish-dominated SDF in eastern Syria.

Monday, April 10, 2017

As the Trump administration decides whether to pursue a
limited military response, it should use existing international legal
mechanisms to pressure Damascus and Moscow right away.

On April 4, the Assad regime used chemical weapons against
civilians in Syria's Idlib province, creating an early and potent test for the
Trump administration's foreign policy. While Washington has prioritized
defeating the Islamic State in eastern Syria, the regime's ceasefire violations
and use of CW in the western part of the country show that President Bashar
al-Assad is continuing his effort to reclaim every inch of Syrian territory,
despite lacking the forces to do so. As long as this dynamic persists, the use
of CW and other strategic weapons will likely continue, impeding efforts to
reach a negotiated settlement that keeps the country intact. This in turn will
worsen the humanitarian crisis and allow U.S.-designated terrorist groups to
expand their safe havens.

The administration has already begun formulating its public
response to the attack, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicating a
potential policy shift during an April 6 press conference: "Assad's role
in the future is uncertain clearly, and with the acts that he has taken it
would seem that there would be no role for him to govern the Syrian
people." If the president decides to back this rhetoric up with robust
action, he can draw on several existing international mechanisms.

INTERNATIONAL
LEGAL OUTLOOK

As the Fact Finding Mission established by the Organisation for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) gathers evidence on the substance
used in this week's attack and those responsible, Washington and its partners
should demand that the Assad regime comply with the mission's mandate,
particularly the so-called Joint Investigative Mechanism. To date, this
mechanism has helped the OPCW determine that the Assad regime used chlorine gas
on at least three separate occasions. These are clear violations of the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which Syria joined as part of the
much-touted 2013 CW deal brokered by Russia and the United States. If the
suspected use of sarin gas on April 4 is likewise verified, it will prove what
the OPCW has long suspected -- that Syria has not disclosed all of its CW
stockpile as required under the 2013 deal, an equally serious matter with deep
consequences for international nonproliferation efforts.

More broadly, these developments show that Assad is escalating
his ruthless bid to stay in power. By indiscriminately gassing opposition-held
areas and obstructing a political resolution, he is ensuring that the country
remains in a permanent state of partition, hemorrhaging people and filling up
with terrorist organizations on all sides. And by not following through on his
commitments under the CWC, he threatens to supercharge the conflict -- the
longer he uses such weapons, the more likely they are to fall into terrorist
hands, not to mention the fact that such outrages boost radicalization and
recruitment efforts. In short, the situation continues to pose a clear threat
to regional and international security.

The United States should therefore turn the tables on Assad,
using his CWC violations as leverage to gain compliance on three other issues:

·A sustainable ceasefire that would allow genuine political talks
to take place

·A political transition as outlined in the 2012 Geneva Communique
and UN Security Council Resolution 2254

·The creation of safe zones in Syria to protect civilians.

Compliance with the OPCW and the Geneva Communique are both
enshrined in the same Security Council document: Resolution 2118, which is
enforceable by measures such as sanctions and use of force following the
passage of a subsequent Chapter VII resolution. Resolution 2235, which created
the Joint Investigative Mechanism, is a Chapter VII resolution. Among other
benefits, pushing for enforcement of these resolutions would compel Russia to
reveal whether it is unable or simply unwilling to goad the Assad regime into
stopping its CW use and negotiating a political transition. This approach would
also prepare Americans for a possible military showdown with Assad over his CWC
violations. Moreover, the resolutions could serve as a means of gaining Russian
acquiescence on the necessity of safe zones in Syria.

COMING CLEAN
AND NEGOTIATING IN GOOD FAITH

Focusing on the effort to rid Syria of CW would help Washington
determine exactly where it stands with both Damascus and Moscow. The best way
to prevent Assad from escalating the crisis and dominating the transition is to
pressure him into complying with the CWC, particularly the provisions regarding
use and disclosure. This would also take away a strategic weapon that the
regime has repeatedly used and keep it from falling into terrorist hands. The
sequencing of this strategy could unfold as follows:

Create diplomatic pressure around Resolutions 2118 and
2235. This effort should focus on two issues: destroying CW and
facilitating the transitional governing body outlined by the Geneva
Communique. The CW problem is the only Syrian issue on which there is
clear Security Council agreement regarding the steps Assad must take.
Similarly, the transition process outlined in the Geneva Communique has broad
international acceptance. Emphasizing these two issues by focusing on
compliance with Resolution 2118 would keep the regime on agenda and steer it
away from justifying its onslaught against civilians as a war on
"terrorism." At the same time, the U.S. government should continue pushing
for adoption of UN draft resolutions that would hold regime figures accountable
for any involvement in CW attacks. Such resolutions should have clear
consequences in the event of noncompliance.

Build public pressure on Damascus and Moscow based on Assad's
CWC noncompliance. By highlighting the regime's use of CW and repeated
ceasefire violations, Washington can determine once and for all whether Russia
will convince Assad to meet his commitments on CW and political transition.
Such an approach would also prod Moscow on the humanitarian and political
front, giving it an excuse to truly pressure Assad.

Increase political support for a
viable Syrian settlement and efforts to combat terrorism. Diplomatic
and public pressure could help restore opposition support for the United States
following its nadir under the Obama administration. Washington could in turn
use this goodwill to obtain rebel guarantees concerning a ceasefire and
political talks. This could also serve as a good first step toward creating political
support for safe zones in order to protect civilians and push out terrorist groups.

Warn Russia to stay clear of Syrian bases. In order to
manage the risk of escalation and Russian retaliation for collateral damage
from possible U.S. military strikes, Washington should warn Moscow to keep its
forces away from all Syrian bases involved in the planning of CW attacks or the
mixing/deployment of CW agents.

THE SWORD OF
DAMOCLES: LIMITED DIRECT MILITARY FORCE

Assad's record since 2013 shows that he does not change course
substantially unless he is confronted with the credible threat of U.S. military
force. His response to Israeli military strikes is instructive in this regard.
In the past, the regime did little when Israeli jets entered Syrian airspace
and bombed convoys attempting to transfer strategic weapons to Hezbollah. More
recently, however, it has used antiaircraft systems to fire on Israeli planes
as they conduct such missions, seemingly self-assured by its growing military
support from Russia and Iran. It is imperative to get Assad off that dangerous
course. This is not just a matter of American credibility: by prolonging and
escalating the war, the regime is perpetuating direct threats to the United
States and its allies in Europe and the Middle East.

The domestic political timing increases the urgency: President
Trump will face growing scrutiny over his handling of the crisis, constraining
his ability to take assertive steps on other pressing international issues
(e.g., the North Korea situation). As the administration decides whether to
pursue the relatively low-cost option of a limited military response (e.g.,
cruise missile strikes), it can take effective international action against the
Assad regime's behavior right away, mainly by pressing for implementation of
Resolutions 2118 and 2235 and demanding the creation of safe zones.

Andrew Tabler is the Martin J.
Gross Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics.

Monday, November 9, 2015

For all the sound principles laid out in Vienna, future talks cannot evade the timeline and mechanism of a transition in Syria, and Russia needs to prove its goodwill on the ground.

An October 30 multilateral meeting in Vienna has produced a nine-point statement of "mutual understanding" on how to end the violence in Syria "as soon as possible." The Vienna Declaration, which complements and refers to the 2012 Geneva Communique, seeks to provide a more inclusive mechanism to "narrow remaining areas of disagreement and build on areas of agreement," and thus could be a starting point for involving supporters of the opposition and the regime (including, for the first time, Iran).

Yet while inclusiveness in Syria necessarily implies a certain degree of ambiguity -- as reflected in the declaration's wording -- finding a workable way out of the crisis will require much more precision on the issue of transition, particularly in terms of establishing a timeline to test Russia and the Assad regime. For example, the current declaration omits the word "transition" in favor of "governance," and it fails to acknowledge that a sustainable settlement is a prerequisite for defeating ISIS and other terrorist groups. Such imprecision could allow Russia and Iran to argue that the Vienna Declaration gives them a diplomatic imprimatur to pursue a military solution, one based solely on keeping President Bashar al-Assad in power. This scenario would only perpetuate the war, fuel terrorism, create more refugees, and likely lead to Syria's long-term partition.

THE DECLARATION'S GAPS

In some ways, the Vienna Declaration seems like diplomatic progress. Seventeen countries (including Iran) joined the UN and European Union in signing onto nine points of understanding:

Preserving Syria's territorial integrity and secular character (the first time the latter point has received such recognition).

Maintaining state institutions.

Protecting civil (read: minority) rights.

Accelerating diplomacy to end the war.

Ensuring humanitarian access.

Defeating ISIS and "other terrorist groups."

Establishing "governance" via UN-supervised elections pursuant to the Geneva Communique and Security Council Resolution 2118. The ever-growing Syrian diaspora has the right to participate in these elections, which will determine the country's new leadership (a point that has elicited worries in Damascus).

Ensuring a Syrian-led political process.

Implementing nationwide ceasefires.

But the declaration is far more ambiguous on transition than the Geneva Communique. For example, point seven speaks vaguely of a process leading to "credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance" without mentioning the word "transition" or related mechanisms. In contrast, the Geneva Communique centered on the creation of a "Transitional Governing Body" with "full executive powers" formed by "members of the present government and the opposition and other groups." And while it allowed regime members to be included in the transition, Geneva precluded the possibility of the sort of Assad-led "reform" process that his backers are now pushing toward.

In addition, the Vienna Declaration does not reiterate Geneva's call for a national dialogue process and the release of political prisoners, freedom of movement for journalists, and the right to demonstrate -- all preconditions for a genuine transition. Also missing is a transition timeline. The talks are due to resume in a fortnight, and other meetings are likely to follow, so setting a timeline is vital to determining whether Russia -- now Assad's most important patron at the negotiating table -- is able and willing to deliver a bona fide transition. Otherwise the default deadline will be 2021, when Assad's current term in office comes to an end following his "reelection" last year. The modalities of transition are unmentioned as well -- while the declaration notes that Syria's state institutions should remain intact, devolving executive powers to a transitional governing body will be crucial, especially regarding the security apparatus.

The international community also needs to sober up about what kind of election is really possible in Syria, and under what kind of supervision. The current regime is one of the world's biggest electoral manipulators, with Assad winning a laughable 94.6 percent of the vote in 2000, 97.6 percent in 2007, and 88.7 percent last year. Parliamentary votes in favor of his Baath Party supporters are a certainty as well. This means that any plan based on the argument "Assad stays until new elections" is really a formula for his continued rule. Only a new government that creates a safe environment for public debate and mobilization can lay the groundwork for new elections at the local, provincial, and national level. As in Bosnia and Kosovo years ago, the UN should seek a more serious and sustained formula than the awkward wording in point seven of the Vienna Declaration: "These elections must be administered under UN supervision to the satisfaction of the governance and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability."

NEXT STEPS

Explicitly outlining a transition process (as described in the Geneva Communique) and setting a firm timeline will help avoid the mistakes made last year, when battlefield developments overtook diplomacy. In early 2014, when Washington anticipated regime "victory" and advocated "de-escalation" and "local ceasefires," UN Special Representative Staffan de Mistura put forward his "Freeze Plan" for Aleppo, in which the regime would halt its attempt to encircle that city in exchange for a ceasefire and negotiations with the opposition. The plan failed, largely because the regime lacked the manpower to retake and hold Aleppo and the various Sunni-dominated areas where opposition forces were strongest. While Russia's intervention has now propped up Assad for the time being, lack of manpower remains a hard reality, and moving the diplomatic goalposts from "transition" to "governance" will not alleviate that shortage, leaving no viable alternative to a negotiated solution.

Agreeing on these issues will likely require more than one round of negotiation. Although it is unclear whether Assad's allies can actually bring him into such a settlement, their willingness to try should be put to the test. Regarding Iran, questions remain about the Foreign Ministry's mandate to negotiate a true transition given that the Supreme Leader's Office and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have primacy on Syria policy and have invested a great deal of blood and treasure in preserving the Assad regime. Meanwhile, Assad has repeatedly thumbed his nose at the opposition during attempts to negotiate a settlement in Moscow, most recently in April.

Other tests should come on the battlefield: Russia claims that its intervention is aimed at fighting terrorists, so its forces should abstain from striking groups that are not recognized as such by the UN Security Council. Moscow's military role also puts it in a unique position to pressure Assad on renouncing assaults against civilian-populated areas (including through the use of barrel bombs) and allowing humanitarian access throughout Syria. Both efforts could serve as short-term confidence-building measures to facilitate diplomacy toward agreement on a stable end state. Without such agreement and a plan to achieve it, the war will not only perpetuate human suffering and displace more people, it also risks becoming a mechanism for Syria's permanent partition into regime-controlled areas and durable terrorist safe havens.

Last but not least is the importance of the declaration's penultimate point: "This political process will be Syrian led and Syrian owned, and the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria." The next rounds of talks should consult with the widest possible circle of Syrians other than those internationally condemned as terrorists. Gone are the days when ending the war required a two-sided negotiation between the regime and a single opposition body. Future declarations should stipulate that any solution to the crisis must be broadly accepted as legitimate and appropriate by this wide circle of Syrians, or else the "solution" will be an empty piece of paper.

Andrew Tabler is the Martin J. Gross Fellow in The Washington Institute's Program on Arab Politics. Olivier Decottignies is a French diplomat-in-residence at the Institute.

Russia has greatly complicated an already-fraught situation by picking a fight with Syria's majority Sunni rebels and tripping into other regional players' spheres of influence.

In the last few weeks, Russia has returned to the Middle East through a direct military intervention in Syria. In doing so, it has entered the Great Game for the heart of that country and the region. Early speculation that Russia intervened unilaterally to prop up the Bashar al-Assad regime has since been undermined by evidence that Russian air strikes are coordinated with an Iranian-supported regime offensive near Aleppo. In fact, it is likely that a June 2015 visit to Moscow by Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, was part of the planning for the eventual Iranian-Russian intervention.

Assad apparently invited the Russian strikes, which has given them some degree of legitimacy, as has Moscow's concurrent promotion of negotiations, which started in Vienna last week. But by intervening on behalf of what Russian officials call a "mosaic" of Iranian-supported forces, Moscow has picked a fight with Syria's majority Sunni rebels and their brethren in the region. It has also tripped into other regional players' spheres of influence, including those of Turkey, the Gulf countries, the Kurds, Jordan, and Israel.

Before the Russian intervention, Syria seemed to be turning into Bosnia or Somalia. Now, it could well become another Afghanistan.

UNBALANCED

Russia's intervention in Syria is the country's first direct military engagement in the Middle East (in Egypt's war of attrition, Soviet pilots flew Egyptian planes; in the 1973 war, the Soviets sent planes but didn't use them). The intervention has primarily consisted of air strikes in areas where the Assad regime had recently been losing ground: north Latakia, the Ghab plain north of Hama, the Rastan pocket north of Homs, and Aleppo. Meanwhile, according to multiple media reports, Iranian, Assad regime, and Hezbollah fighters have started a ground campaign to retake areas in the north lost earlier this year to the so-called Army of Conquest -- a patchwork of moderate, Islamist, and al-Qaeda-affiliated rebels.

Collectively, the strikes and ground campaign represent a concerted effort to secure three key sites. The first is the Ghab plain, Syria's most fertile area and the boundary between minority populations on the coast and the majority Sunni population inland. The second is the M-5 roadway, the transportation spine linking Damascus to Homs, Hama, and the north. The third is the besieged city of Aleppo.

Russian air strikes and the associated Iranian-backed offensive have already collided head-on with Turkish and Arab Gulf spheres of influence in northern Syria. Russia has indicated to Turkey via multiple incursions into Turkish airspace that it regards northern Syria as being in play. Turkey, as Russia has made clear, must rein in its support for rebel groups at the Bab al-Salam border crossing in the north and the Bab al-Hawa crossing to the west. Although Russian strikes have hit a number of groups, the most significant have been against moderate groups backed by the United States, the Saudi-backed Salafist group Ahrar al-Sham, and al-Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra. Rebels in the area have tried to stop or slow the regime's ground offensive using U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles, a weapon rumored to be paid for by Riyadh but that requires Washington's approval of end users.

The Russian strikes have also altered the balance between Turkey and the Kurds. The Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the political heavyweight behind the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG), is attempting to form a contiguous Kurdish belt along Syria's northern border. Russia is reportedly keen to support this effort in order to block Russian and Chechen fighters in Syria from returning home via the Caucasus. The PYD, sensing Washington's weak hand, has openly asked for U.S. backing to connect the western Kurdish canton of Afrin to Kobani by seizing the area west of the Euphrates River (which, not incidentally, is where Turkey has said it intends to create a safe zone).

Washington has encouraged the PYD to focus on working with Arab tribes, Assyrians, and Syriac Christian units under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS). If the PYD does not receive U.S. support for its unification efforts, though, it could turn to Russia and Iran to close off the belt from the south and cut ISIS off from Turkey. This area is home to a mix of Turkmen, Kurds, and Sunni Arabs, which means that however the situation develops, it is likely to be extremely bloody. The Kurds are strong but likely not strong enough to hold the whole area. ISIS, meanwhile, has long had the region in its cross hairs; ISIS-linked ideologues point to prophecies that in the village of Dabiq, a great battle will take place between an invading "infidel" army that will be turned back by defending Muslims, marking the beginning of the end of the world.

In this conflagration, Russia has been relatively hands-off in southern Syria, with only a few strikes near Tel Harra and Daraa, despite rebel gains there over the last year that have brought them close to Damascus. Southern Syria is split among the Jordanian, Israeli, and Hezbollah spheres of influence, but Israel holds air supremacy in the area. The lack of Russian action there, at least so far, could be the product of a September meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Russians have said they have created a joint antiterror "mechanism" in Amman that might keep Russian planes out of the area, at least for now.

What is still unclear is Russia's plans for ISIS. That Russia is serious about combating the terrorist group is doubtful, given that 80 percent of Russian air strikes so far have targeted groups other than ISIS. Unless Russia is willing to commit tens of thousands of ground troops, it is unlikely that it (or Assad) will be able to retake and hold Raqqa and the Euphrates valley. In other words, Moscow is in for a long slog in the Syrian quagmire, a point U.S. President Barack Obama has repeated on multiple occasions.

THE DIPLOMATIC GAME

The Russian intervention, nominally meant to fight terrorism, is designed to strengthen Assad's and Iran's hands in the diplomatic game over a political settlement in Syria. The ongoing talks in Vienna are just the latest move in untying what is often referred to as the "Assad knot" -- the fraught question of the Syrian president's role in a transition that was outlined in the Geneva Communique of 2012, which Russia and the United States negotiated.

At that time, the regime's fall seemed likely, so Western representatives watered down the communique's language over Assad's fate to overcome a Russian veto at the United Nations. Instead of demanding that Assad "step aside" as part of a transition, the United States agreed that a "Transitional Governing Body" with "full executive powers" would be formed by "mutual consent." American negotiators argued that the mutual consent clause would give the opposition a veto over Assad's participation in the transitional government. But by not explicitly ruling Assad out of the scheme, and by failing to define which opposition groups had to be consulted, the agreement allowed Assad to stall for time and gave Russia the upper hand.

The political basis for an Assad-led transition (or a transition led by any other member of the Assad regime) seems far from clear. During the last talks in Moscow between the Assad regime and representatives of the opposition, in April, the Russians failed to gain agreement on an antiterrorism platform -- mainly because the regime insists on labeling anyone in the opposition as a terrorist. Russia's subsequent air strikes against moderate elements of the Syrian opposition indicate that Moscow might see the situation in a similar way. Otherwise, it could indicate that when pressed to choose Assad or ISIS, the opposition will opt for the former. The notion of getting the regime and the opposition to bury the hatchet and unite against terrorism is thus a real long shot.

YOUR MOVE

The ultimate result of Russia's intervention in Syria will depend on what domestic actors and their regional supporters do next. The mothballing, but not cancellation, of the U.S. train-and-equip program shortly after Moscow started bombing Syria was just the latest example of Washington's horrible timing in the Syrian war; the optics are likely to benefit jihadists above all. Washington's sending of 50 Special Forces to back the PYD-supported Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS is unlikely to help the rebels fighting Assad in western Syria, and it could create considerable tension between the United States and Turkey. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, a group of 55 clerics and prominent Islamists signed a statement that called for everything just short of jihad to confront the Russian intervention.

In other words, Islamist factions such as Ahrar al-Sham could soon be getting much more support. If Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIS starts spreading its influence in southern Syria, it could trigger Jordan and Israel to seriously consider the creation of a formal safe or buffer zone in southern Syria. Until now, the two have maintained the status quo with a de facto safe area stretching about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) into Syria from the Jordanian border. Something deeper would require a more formal arrangement and, likely, a Security Council resolution.

Turkey and the Gulf states have already facilitated the transfer of TOW missiles into Syria, but the real dilemma remains whether and under what circumstances they will provide their allies with antiaircraft capabilities. For years, the Syrian opposition has demanded shoulder-fired man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) to counter the regime aircraft and now Russian jets. But the lack of clear lines of separation among opposition forces and the prevalence of terrorist groups in the opposition have kept MANPADS out of Syria. Meanwhile, direct air support for the opposition from Turkey or Jordan could set the stage for a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia. If Russia continues to pound opposition positions in the north or expand operations to the south in support of the Assad regime, tens of thousands of refugees could go pouring across the border, dramatically accelerating plans for the creation of safe areas.

With the electoral victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) on November 1, Ankara is likely to viciously fight any PYD attempt to unite the Afrin and Kobani cantons. Turkey would likely combat such a move by supporting Syrian groups in the area along the Marea line, the main supply route from Turkey's Bab al-Salam crossing south to Aleppo. Although it is unlikely, a PYD move en masse could even trigger a direct Turkish military intervention to fight both the YPG and ISIS.

What remains to be seen is how Tehran will react, not so much to Russia's military campaign (from which it has already benefited) but to Russia's attempts to cobble together a broad-based multisectarian transition in Syria. Up to this point, Tehran's support in Syria has been narrowly focused on building up the minority-dominated National Defense Forces and importing Hezbollah fighters as well as Shiite Iraqi and Afghan militias to fight rebels. Iranians say their approach is based on the assumption that the Assad regime is an inverted pyramid -- that is, that the whole system would crumble without Assad. Russian officials quietly voice an interest in a transition in which the regime is preserved but Assad at some point exits the scene.

Even if Moscow is able to pull a rabbit out of its diplomatic hat and get a process started, it remains far from clear that Tehran would break ranks with the Assad family. For now, deployment of more Iranian forces to the gates of Aleppo indicates that Tehran is doubling down on Assad yet again, even as its nuclear agreement with Washington brings it in from the cold. Such a development would likely ensure Syria's partition indefinitely, and with it, the Great Game of Syria.